▼94:1 In verse 1 the psalmist says, ‘You are a great judge.’ A judge is someone that decides who is good and who is bad. Because God does nothing, the psalmist says, ‘show people that you are a great judge’, verse 1. The Hebrew word for ‘great judge’ really means ‘punish bad people.’ Because God is judge of all the earth, the psalmist says: ‘Give to proud people what they ought to receive’, verse 2. Proud people think that they are great (when often they are not). These proud people do bad things, verses 4-7. They are as a heavy weight on God’s people, verse 5. This means that God’s people have hurt and pain. The bad people kill widows and murder children, verse 6. Widows are married women, but their husbands are dead. Murder is another word for kill. The worst thing is in verse 7. They say that God is not looking. God will not see what they are doing. So the psalmist says to God ‘Do something!’ (verse 2). He means ‘punish these bad people.’ Punish means ‘hurt them because they have been bad people.’ This is what ‘they ought to receive’, (verse 2).

▼94:7 In verses 1-7, the psalmist is complaining. Complaining means ‘saying that something is wrong.’ He is complaining about the ‘bad people’, verse 3. Who are these bad people? The bad people before the exile, when the Jews went to Babylon, were foreign leaders. After the exile, the Jewish leaders were the bad people. Because we do not know the date of the psalm, we say that they are all bad leaders, foreign or Jewish. What is the psalmist complaining about? That God is doing nothing about it!

▼94:11 In verses 8-11, the psalmist speaks to the bad leaders. He tells them that they are fools. This does not mean that they are silly, or cannot think. It means that they are fools to think that God does not see what they are doing. In verses 8-9, the psalmist asks three questions. The answer to them all is ‘yes!’ Yes, God can hear. Yes, God can see. And yes, God will punish bad leaders. The LORD God knows that what these people think is worth nothing. The Hebrew word ‘nothing’ is ‘abel.’ It means ‘air.’ We often translate it ‘foolish’ or ‘silly.’

▼94:13 In verse 13, we read about ‘the pit.’ The Jews thought that when you died you went to Sheol. Sheol was a dark place under the ground. In it was a big hole. They called it ‘the pit.’ It was where very bad people went. So, some people translate ‘until someone digs a pit’ as ‘until they die.’ When that happens God promises good things for his people in verses 14 and 15.

▼94:15 In verses 12-15, the psalmist talks about good people. They have ‘good in their hearts’, (verse 15). The Jews said that you thought in your heart. So, these people think good things. The LORD rules them, (verse 12). This means that God is their king. Remember, the psalms before and after Psalm 94 are royal psalms. ‘Laws’, in verse 12, is another word for ‘rules.’ But God’s laws are special rules. We find them in the Bible. The Hebrew word for ‘law’ is ‘torah.’ They called the first 5 books of the Bible the Torah, also Isaiah, Jeremiah and other prophets. (Prophets were people that spoke God’s words. Some prophets wrote books in the Bible.)

▼94:23 There is a change in verses 16-23. The psalmist is now writing about himself. Some Bible students say that this is a separate psalm. Other students do not agree. It does not matter. God speaks to us through both parts of the psalm. Maybe the psalmist was the king! That would make Psalm 94 a royal psalm also.

The psalmist had trouble. He does not say what it was. Who fought for him and kept him safe, (verse 16)? It was the LORD, (verse 17), so the psalmist did not die. When the psalmist nearly fell, God made him safe, (verse 18). When he was not happy, God made him happy again, (verse 19). A better word for happy here is ‘confident.’ It means that you know everything will be OK. The psalm ends where it began. In verse 2, the psalmist asks God to punish bad leaders. Now he is confident that God will do that, (verse 23).